It seems the time has come to establish what time it is on the Moon. The request is none other than the White House, which in a note signed by the Office of Science and Technology Policy ordered NASA to adopt a plan by 2026 to establish what has been called Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC), or a lunar time zone that will be fundamental in view of the new era of lunar exploration.
The American space agency would in fact like to send a crew to the satellite starting from 2026 as part of the Artemis mission plan.
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What is the purpose of setting the time on the Moon
Establishing a unified time standard for the Moon and other celestial bodies will therefore be essential to coordinate all activities.
The different gravitational pull, and potentially other factors, on the Moon and other celestial bodies change how time unfolds compared to how it is perceived on Earth. It would provide, among other things, a timing reference for lunar spacecraft, which require extreme precision for their missions.
“The same clock we have on Earth would move at a different speed on the Moon,” Kevin Coggins, NASA's head of space communications and navigation, explained in an interview, quoted by Reuters. “On the Moon, an Earth clock would lose an average of 58.7 microseconds each Earth day and would have other periodic variations that would further shift lunar time from Earth time,” added Arati Prabhaka of the US government's Office of Science and Technology Policy.